The present invention relates to methods and systems for creating, issuing and printing financial transaction cards, such as credit cards issued to consumers by financial institutions.
More specifically, the present invention pertains to methods and systems that allow a bank or other financial institution to instantly and securely issue a personalized credit card to a consumer at a branch or other remote location.
Many new customer accounts opened by banks include one or more debit or credit cards associated with the account. New customer accounts are typically opened at branch locations whereas new cards are often issued by a centralized card services provider that is not physically near the bank branch. Accordingly, the customer must supply card information to a bank employee at the branch. The customer may or may not have an opportunity to select a personalized PIN at that time. This card data is then communicated, perhaps in a batch mode with other card data, to a card services provider.
The card services provider fulfills the card request by printing and encoding the card, then mailing it to the branch or to the customer. The customer must then activate the card. This process involves delay and expense that is undesirable and may introduce unnecessary security risks.
What is needed, then, is a low cost, secure, simple and easy to install system and method for providing instant issue of personalized financial transaction cards in a bank branch. This needed system and method should interface with the new accounts platform/host used by the bank and meet all of the security requirements imposed by the major credit and debit card issuers and transaction processors.